Testing With What You Have

What Analytics Can Do That You Can’t

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We have brought thought leaders, influencers, visionaries and veterans to our tribe. Now it’s your turn. If you have something worthwhile to share with a large community of savvy testers, go ahead and pitch your post idea. We’re listening.

Testing With What You Have

When it comes to online business tools, few are more effective than A/B Testing, also known as split testing or multivariate testing. Most succesfull marketers use this technique in their marketing campaigns. There are a lot of different tests that can help you improve your website’s conversion rate. Many marketers agree with this, but they have difficulties choosing the right test and what exactly to test.

In a podcast series hosted by Creative Thirst, Bobby Hewitt presented ways on how to turn more clicks into customers. As most marketers know, it is no longer all about getting heavy traffic to flow to your website. It is about making sure that that traffic converts into paying customers. Convert shares some insights on choosing what to test and how to choose a testing method that is suitable for your website.

Test Limitations

No one can test everything. Although there will never be a shortage of ideas to test, the truth is, testing takes time, it takes money, and it takes resources. Not even the biggest companies will test everything.

It is a fact that almost everything in your website can be tested. But it is also a fact that no one has the time or the money to test every possible element on their site. But when choosing what to test, the final decision should be carefully thought about. Remember that every test requires:

Time

Money

Resource

Some conversion rate marketing experts will tell you to test everything, but that’s a very naive way of looking at things. No one can test everything. You shouldn’t be worrying because you’re not able to test everything. Just focus on the most important things and you will get what you want. There are two things to consider when choosing what pages to test;

Avoid sacred cult pages. Cult pages are pages that someone in your company, usually in a higher position than you, has a personal take-in. There is no better way to kill a CRO campaign than to prove the CEO wrong with a better cult page.

Which page brings in high revenue. This depends on what type of business you are into. Which page to test is different for each website and each business model.

Testing Methods

Before you start with the testing, think about the most important elements of every page on your website. Then, decide which page to test first.

As a business owner and marketer, you should be willing to take risks. Every company must experiment risks in order to increase their conversion rate. No one wants to make a wrong decision, but if you don’t take risks, then you won’t improve. It won’t be such a big deal if you make a mistake, but if a website stops evolving and improving, it could become stale and lose traffic. Which is death for a website.

Once you have determined what pages to test, you can now choose what kind of test you need to do. Among these testing methods, there are 4 main types of test you can employ;

Template Variation Test

Usability Test

A/B Test or Split Test

Multivariate Test

The most important thing when testing is to learn from your pages failures and mistakes. The good thing is that you can’t make a mistake by choosing a test. The only thing you will get from it is feedback. Feedback can be good or bad, but they teach you a good lesson. The feedback is extremely important because they come directly from your visitors and customers. Before you start with the testing, think about the most important elements of every page on your website. Then, decide which page to test first.

Think about your business goals carefully. If the elements you are about to test are not directly related to your business goals, then you are just wasting your precious time. You will get lots of ideas from your coworkers, but the final decision is up to you. Every effort you make will give you positive results at the end. If you want to know more about CRO and testing methods, you can visit us at Convert.

As Customer Content Manager, Lem is responsible for bringing learnings in conversion optimization and testing to the world. He is part of Convert.com's growth team and coordinates all writers, editors and illustrators.

We have brought thought leaders, influencers, visionaries and veterans to our tribe. Now it’s your turn. If you have something worthwhile to share with a large community of savvy testers, go ahead and pitch your post idea. We’re listening.